If you love to eat rice, you should get an electric rice cooker to use for cooking. This article will give you a comparison of the best electric rice cookers available in the market today, including the features that make them unique or better than the rest. This will surely provide you enough information needed to decide which electric rice cooker to buy in case you are planning to purchase one anytime soon.
Not all electric rice cookers are made equal. There are those designed for a specific variety of rice or for cooking in large volumes. There are those made for everyday use. They also come in cute animated designs as well as in modern and chic ones. Since almost everything is available online. This article will be your guide in your search for the best electric rice cooker out there.
The Top 6 Electric Rice Cookers
As mentioned earlier, this article will center on the different rice cookers to help you find the best one. The following are the top 6 electric rice cookers available in the market today:
This Neuro Fuzzy rice cooker can take in up to 1.8 liters in volume. It measures approximately 11 by 9 by 10 and ½ inches. It has a spherical nonstick inner pan that allows spherical heating which prevent unevenly cooked rice. The cord is retractable which allows you to store it free of hassle. It is equipped with multiple menu selections including automatic keep-warm, extended keep-warm and reheat cycles.
Built with neuro fuzzy logic technology, which is one of the newest rice cooking systems available in the market today. This is an energy saving technology that makes cooling and heating of rice more efficient by using less energy.
The Zojirushi NS-ZCC18 is the largest rice cooker in terms of its capacity among the NS-ZCC series of rice cookers. You can cook rice to feed as much as five people.
It has a modern design and the buttons and menu are easy to operate. The timer which is set in military mode has a large display size making it easy to read. It usually comes with standard accessories that include two measuring cups, a rice spatula, rice spatula holder and even some rice recipes.
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This is a multi-functional electric rice cooker that allows one to prepare different dishes at the same time with the help of its “tacook” synchronized cooking function. It has a very efficient cooking temperature monitoring system. The cooking plate is specially designed to prevent the flavors from the other dish being cooked from interfering with the cooking of the rice.
It has the capacity of 5 and ½ cups of rice. It’s 10.6 inches wide, 35.3 inches in diameter and 21.4 inches high. It has four different computerized cooking menu settings.
The plain rice option allows cooking of plain rice with much ease. The brown rice menu provides a different cooking temperature more suitable for brown rice and similar grains. The slow cooking option is best for cooking meat and other dishes. Then, there’s the synchro-cooking menu option which use a breakthrough technology that allows you to cook rice and another dish simultaneously.
This electric rice cooker is pretty easy to use and comes with a free cookbook.
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This electric rice cooker is designed to allow perfectly cooked rice of any variety. It can hold 2 to 8 cups of rice. Steaming can be done while rice is cooking. You can steam meat and vegetables which is very convenient while at the same time allows you to save time and energy.
The programmable digital controls are so easy to use. It has an automatic keep-warm function as well as modes for white rice and brown rice. It can also be used for cooking different soups and sauces which makes it multi-functional. The 15-hour delay timer mechanism helps allow a more flexible meal planning.
When you purchase this electric rice cooker, it comes with a steam tray, rice measuring cup and a serving spatula.
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This is a more conventionally designed electric rice cooker. This is a no non-sense type of home equipment. It functions and it works just the way you need it to. No extra features to make it more complicated. Cooking rice is made simple. There’s just one button and you press it before cooking, otherwise it would just warm whatever you place inside the pan. The keep warm setting and shut-off is automatic.
It can cook up to six cups of rice. The inner pot is removable and has a non-stick coating. The cover is made of tempered glass and it has a steam vent. It comes with a steaming tray, a measuring cup and a ladle.
It has a steaming tray that is placed above the cooking rice. It utilizes the steam from the boiling water. It’s perfect for steaming meat and vegetables that we usually eat with our perfectly cooked rice.
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This is an electric rice cooker that uses digital technology. It is perfect for cooking for a large group of people. It is multi-functional and the settings are easy to operate. It is 10.25 inches high, 10.25 inches wide and 9.5 inches in diameter.
It can cook from 2 up to 14 cups of rice which makes it useful not only when cooking for a large group of people. You only need to press the cooking function and it will do the rest of the work for you. It can also be used to cook beans, whole grains, pasta and rice mixes.
It has a very unique heat/simmer function, which helps you not only when cooking but in extending the shelf life of your cooked meals. It can also be used for steaming to give you healthier diet options. It has an automatic function that shifts the temperature to warm as soon as rice or whatever you’re cooking is already cooked.
It comes with a steaming tray that can be used for preparing vegetables, dumplings and others. It also comes with a measuring cup and a rice paddle.
This electric rice cooker is also equipped with a delay start setting so you can prepare for cooking up to 15 hours in advance.
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This electric rice cooker is multi-functional like the rest of the top six. Like the JBV-A10U, it allows you to prepare different dishes at the same time with the help of its “tacook” synchronized cooking function.
It has a thick inner pot that measures 1.5 to 5.5 millimeters. It can hold up to 10 cups of rice. It has a whooping ten computerized cooking menus that include slow cook and brown rice settings. With its two preset cooking timers, you will really find it easy to cook two separate dishes while making sure they are cooked properly.
It has a detachable steam cap that allows ease of cleaning. The outer cover is stainless making it easier to clean and maintain as well. The cooking plate that is equipped with tacook technology is BPA free which is a toxic industrial chemical that can pose a threat to our health when ingested in significant amounts.
This electric rice cooker is 10.1 inches wide, 13.7 inches in diameter and 20.9 inches high. When you buy this, it usually comes with a free cookbook to give you plenty of meal options that you can readily prepare with the rice cooker.
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Electric Rice Cookers Comparison: Each Model, Side By Side
Let us take a closer look at the featured electric rice cookers and how they fare when compared with the rest in terms of the following categories:
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Price
It is just natural for us to consider the price of an appliance before deciding whether to purchase it or not. After all, we’d be spending our hard-earned money on something in the hopes that it would help make our life at home better and more convenient.
Electronic equipment including electric rice cookers with more capabilities and with advanced systems are usually more expensive. Hence, it’s no longer a surprise why the Tiger Micom Rice Cooker and the Zojirushi NS-ZCC18 rice cooker belonged in the high price group. On the other hand, the Tiger Corporation JBV-A10U and Hamilton Beach Digital Rice Cooker are in the mid-price class while the Oster 004722-000-000 Rice Cooker and the Aroma Housewares ARC-914SBD are quite affordable. They are among the lowest in terms of price.
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Technology
All rice cookers are using the same fundamental thermodynamic concept so they can function and be able to cook rice just the way it should be. But as mentioned, rice cookers nowadays are quite different compared to how they were decades ago.
There are already rice cookers in the market which are equipped with smart computerized technologies like the Tiger Micom Rice Cooker and the Zojirushi NS-ZCC18 rice cooker. The systems installed in these rice cookers enable them to provide more complex menu settings options for different functions other than just simply cooking rice. This is evident in the number of options in their menu.
Tacook technology which is a flagship innovation by the Tiger Corporation is equipped in both Tiger Micom Rice Cooker and Tiger JBV-A10U. This is the technology that allows simultaneously cooking of rice and another dish with the rice cooker without so much effects on the flavor or rice with the help of a specially designed accessory and heating technology.
The Zojirushi NS-ZCC18 rice cooker is also equipped with the unique neuro fuzzy technology that helps in maximizing heat technology and ensuring that efficiency in the process of cooking rice.
Perhaps, among the six electric rice cookers featured in this article the Oster Rice Cooker has the simplest system of technology installed. It’s a conventional type of rice cooker that mainly focuses on dual function of cooking and keeping the rice warm after it is cooked.
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Ease Of Use And Maintenance
When it comes to ease of use and maintenance, this is where the conventionally designed ones are at an advantage. The Oster 004722-000-000 will definitely fare well in terms of ease of use since it works with a simple click of the switch. Nothing’s complicated with that.
Unlike with the others that are equipped with computerized settings like the Tiger Micom Rice Cooker and the Zojirushi NS-ZCC18 rice cooker, although will be able to enjoy extra features to make cooking of rice more efficient and more convenient you will probably need to study the manual for a day or two.
All the electric rice cookers mentioned are easy to maintain like the Hamilton Beach Digital Rice Cooker and the Aroma Housewares ARC-914SBD that have non-stick inner pots. Non-stick inner pots and stainless steel components are really easy to clean and maintain.
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Design And Appearance
As to their design and appearance, the irregularly shaped ones including the Tiger JAX-T10U-K, Tiger Corporation JBV-A10U and the Zojirushi NS-ZCC18 rice cooker look edgier and more modern. They will look perfect in kitchens with modern interior designs. The Hamilton Beach Digital Rice Cooker, the Aroma Housewares ARC-914SBD and the Oster 004722-000-000 Rice Cooker on the other hand are more conventionally designed. They are perfect for people who have more conservative tastes in home decoration.
Last Words of (Shopping) Advice
There are seriously plenty of electric rice cooker models to choose from. There’s probably no one perfect electric rice cooker out there since each one is equipped with specific technology and features that may not be that important when it comes to your specific rice cooking needs.
If you want conventional rice cookers that are affordable and are not particularly interested in rice cookers that have extra features, then the low-priced ones like the Oster 004722-000-000 Rice Cooker and the Aroma Housewares ARC-914SBD would serve their purpose just fine.
However, if you value innovation and want your electric rice cooker to be multifunctional and efficient, then perhaps you should consider models with computerized menu settings like Tiger Micom Rice Cooker and the Zojirushi NS-ZCC18 rice cooker.
You are now an informed rice cooker buyer. You should now be able to come up with a good choice of product to purchase, one that fits your cooking lifestyle and the budget that you have.